Teribus ye teri odin

Teribus ye teri odin or teribus an teriodin ([ˈtirɪbəs ən ˈtiri ˈodɪn]) is popularly believed to have been the war cry of the men of Hawick at the Battle of Flodden, and still preserved in the traditions of the town. The full chorus of the Border ballad Teribus ye teri odin is often sung at festive gatherings, not only in the gallant old border town itself, but in the remotest districts of Canada, the United States and Australia, wherever Hawick men ("Teris"), and natives of the Scottish Border congregated to keep up the remembrance of their native land, and haunts of their boyhood.

The full version of the Border ballad written by James Hogg in 1819 (not James Hogg, "The Ettrick Shepherd", with the same name), which replaced an earlier one by Arthur Balbirnie used a generation earlier, is still sung at the Hawick Common Riding in June of every year.

Attempts have been made to connect the phrase teribus an teriodin with the names of the Scandinavian and Norse gods, Thor and Odin from the Old English Týr hæbbe us, e Týr e Oðinn "May [the god] Tyr keep us, both Tyr and Odin", an unlikely explanation since the gods' names are given in their Old Norse forms, not the Old English Tiw and Wodan and the normal phonological development would not result in the modern pronunciation, apart from that, the survival of a supposed Old English sentence in its near original form for more than 700 years is barely conceivable.

Charles Mackay described the ballad, of which these mysterious words form the burden, is one of patriotic "defence and defiance" against foreign invaders and suggested that the phrase is a corruption, or phonetic rendering, of the Scottish Gaelic "Tìr a buaidh, 's tìr a dìon" meaning "Land of victory and land of defence".

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